Institute History
Description
To Catch a Predator was a popular television show designed to hunt down child predators and lure them to a film set, where they would be interviewed and eventually arrested. An exploration of the scintillating rise and staggering fall of the show and the world it helped create.
Posing provocative, uncomfortable, and perhaps unanswerable questions about society’s conception of crime and punishment, Predators focuses its lens on the phenomenon of To Catch a Predator. Director David Osit conducts a thoughtful, layered analysis of the show, its meaning, and its larger legacy — from the original series to both its sanctioned and copycat progeny. He surfaces legally and ethically questionable tactics employed to turn vigilante justice into media spectacle, with little thought to the life-changing consequences for the perpetrators and others impacted by the program. In the process, Osit subverts expectations about To Catch a Predator and its ilk as well as, self-reflexively, about the morality and purpose of his own film. How are we complicit by consuming true crime programs, or documentaries about them, which trade in public humiliation and schadenfreude as popular entertainment?—Basil Tsiokos
Available in person. Also available online for the public (January 30–February 2) and credentialed press and industry (January 29–February 2).
This film contains mature content, and is not recommended for audiences 17 and under.
Screenings include closed and open captions.